With a new President-elect Donald Trump officially starting in 2017, how did he get in? There's tons of analysis in relation to society being frustrated with the political status quo and that the disenfranchised got behind the Donald (let alone alleged racism and misogyny), but let's look specifically at how the Donald and his political extreme opposite, Bernie Sanders, managed to drive a more passionate following than Hilary Clinton in the early campaign.

Both Sanders and Trump managed to maximise engagement with the right balance of content, language and energy.

If, like the above news outlets, social commentary and opinions from marketing experts to journalists to your friends on social media, you thought that it was cringe-worthy and that it would turn off graduates seeking to work at the Department of Finance rather than them being interested in it, in my opinion you need to think of the bigger picture.

Have you heard the story about the scorpion and the frog? The other day someone told me that story and how they couldn't change who they were, and my opinion is that story is half right.

"A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, they would both drown. Considering this, the frog agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When the frog asks the scorpion why, the scorpion replies that it was in its nature to do so." - WikipediaMy take: your nature is how you want it to be. Change occurs when you CONSCIOUSLY work, and keep working on it.~~

The scorpion and the frog story is a simply illustrates that one cannot change their personality, traits or nature; a story which on deeper thought is untrue when you use it as an analogy to the thinking person.

If you want to change an aspect of yourself, you have to firstly be aware of what you want to change. I don't mean what or how you want to be, but also what has caused you to be like that. Ask yourself that hard question; a lot of people give up when they have to genuinely question themselves, but you're better than that, right? In a typical session with me, one of the first questions I ask is about my clients' beliefs and environment when they were growing up to better understand what their current needs, wants and hurdles are as they're specifically unique to each of them.

Then you have to find out what the steps are to be what or who you want to be. And you have to work on it, not just a once off thing or doing it for a couple of weeks, but actually work on it every single day/hour/time you have. Research has shown that it takes 21 consecutive days to form a habit as simple as drinking water after a meal, so allow a great deal more time for complex changes to change yourself or outlook. For my clients, I give them a specifically tailored 12 week program with homework tasks which they should be doing everyday, with each task building up on the previous one.

So do you want to change a negative aspect of yourself to something more fulfilling and reciprocal? Or are you resigned or too afraid to discover what you really could be?Take that leap and improve your life. Go on; don't be that scorpion in life.

tl;dr - expect less or explain in detail your expectations for success and less frustrations.~~~

"It's so f**king frustrating! You do all these things and then they go and just f**k it up!"Obviously, my friend was frustrated to say the least; I have a knack for guessing these things, you know."I mean, they don't do what their supposed to do! They not only disappoint me, but they disappoint themselves! Failures!"

Familiar feeling isn't it?

We're all fairly intelligent beings and we know what we should generally do to get ahead in work or life. We know the end game or goal and we have a rough idea how to achieve it in some sense. So when things go wrong, we're able to adapt because we still have that destination (or 'deliverable' in corporate speak) in mind. But what if we're dependent on others to help us achieve that goal? What if we require colleagues or subordinates to help us fulfil that milestone? What if we need our partners to do certain things in a certain way to bring about and maintain happiness?

That's fantastic! Because you get to achieve something together, relationships (romantic or teams) get stronger and everyone feels more empowered within themselves and others, right?

But what if it fails? What makes it fail? Lack of effort? Lack of understanding? Stubbornness? Apathy? Sure, all those things can come into play, but I think the main thing that leads to failure in anything are expectations.

We may expect others to write that report for an executive level audience, double spaced, duplex printed and in full colour with only one image per page. We may expect our partners to take us out on date night every fortnight and dress up for the occasion. We may expect others to stack the dishwasher a certain way and yet again, they fail to do so.

So we get disappointed when they don't do what we expect. We get angry. We get sad. We experience failure and regret.

Now, it's great to have a general overall expectation for something be it the end of a project or a loving relationship, but the more detail or steps we have in our expectations, the higher chance that we'll get disappointed particularly if we don't inform those of whom we expect things exactly what and how we want things. If we don't, no matter if the end result is achieved, you'll always have that niggling feeling that things wasn't done right. Instead of celebrating, you end up picking it apart.

So, if you're going to expect something from someone, do yourself and them a favour and either explain in detail your expectations, or tell them what you ultimately want and expect less. I do both, and I find I'm pleasantly surprised and less frustrated every time.​Note: expectations are different to an actual plan, because that lays out a clear direction and strategy. Don't get confused between the two.

"And then whilst the Success Monster is cheering you on, the Fail monster behind him is bigger and meaner and just waiting for you."

We’ve all heard of the fear of failure; that fear where it changes possible initial enthusiasm to that feeling of outright disaster all from a single, nervous query “have I got everything covered?”

So you go over your list or tasks over again, and then you might add another task, or tweak an action. “But what if that or this happens?”, you ask yourself. So you add another task. And another. And soon the spiralling affects and sheer weight of what you think should be done creates that massive Fail monster who starts convincing you that everything will turn to crap.

But sometimes there’s another type of monster. This monster wants you to succeed. You’ve got a game plan? “Great! You’ll be great!”, cheers the monster. So you do great things. Sure, you’ve got a tons of other things on your plate, but this monster is right in front of you holding back that Fail monster, allowing you to knock off your tasks quickly and confidently.

In fact, you’re feeling great because nothing can stop you! As you near the completion of your game plan, this Success monster starts to show you the potential positive results. You’ll succeed in that job/project/deliverable, and “…you’ll set a benchmark for others to hold you by. They’ll expect no less than that. So you have to do more. Take on more. Be more! Come on! Yay!”

But you’re tired. And you can’t keep working at full capacity. And then whilst the Success Monster is cheering you on, the Fail monster behind him is bigger and meaner and just waiting for you.

So you drop the ball. You don’t feel like achieving what you set out to do, because everyone else will expect you to constantly be successful. You want to throw in the towel, because ultimately the two monsters may seem different, they are still monsters.

There are some techniques and skills which can I help you with to overcome these monsters, but here’s 3 monster busting tips to get you started:

Understand what your fear is – observe those monsters before they grow; what do they do to you, what are their behaviors?

Play with that fear – make friends with the monsters; play with extremes of success and failure and laugh at it

Use that fear – what are your responses to fear? Can you use those reactions to help you be more confident in yourself and the task? Of course!

Let’s make those monsters work for us!

Yes. And. Now. - Ivan Chew

I’ll be covering more on fear and gaining confidence at the Supercharge Your Business event on Saturday 09 April 2016 at Academy Xi together with 3 other guides and coaches covering clarity, sales and marketing, which will help give you the tools to ascend further up your path.

You’ll gain knowledge to abate those monsters (“Yes, I have everything covered! And I know my true self expectations! Begone, monster!”), so if you want to help yourself, register for the event at http://www.sybevent.com

“So what did you do? How did you feel?”, I asked as he let out a sigh that was filled with regret.

“I didn’t do anything; I just left feeling like crap! I’m not doing it again!”

Here I was sitting in the barber’s chair getting a haircut, and what started off as small talk as to what I do, led to something that we’ve all experienced in our lives. In the barber’s case, as a part-time DJ on the clubbing scene, even though he had performed numerous times in crowds of the hundreds, he froze this one time and hadn’t performed in front of a crowd since.

Fear: sometimes we get over it, other times it gets one over us.

As I tell in my workshops, you can never get rid of fear and by doing so, in my opinion is foolish. Rather one has to manage the fear of failure, and to do that, one must first understand why it exists.

We fear because we put value on an imagined negative result. We think that if we don’t kick goals through the goal posts we set ourselves that we will fail people’s expectations, which results in loss – loss of respect, loss of love, loss of ego. But it isn’t ourselves that we really disappoint; rather it’s the opinion of those we care about. We want validation and support from our peers, friends or family.

But guess what? This is the main step to managing that fear: we already have that validation and support.

We keep their company because there is mutual respect and support, so whatever you do, they’re right there cheering you on either loudly or silently. If you’ve done something less than stellar, they’re there to help pick you up, encourage and make you realise that you gave your best (if indeed, you truly did. If you didn’t then you need to understand why, but that’s another topic). Once you understand and fully appreciate that, then you’re on your way to get it under control.

But what if you don’t get that support and respect from your circle? Then you need to ask yourself why they’re in your circle in the first place.

Fear is healthy, if managed. It keeps us on our toes. If pumps us with adrenalin. It gives us inspiration when we normally can’t find a solution. It gives you that nervous energy, where directed correctly can be positive energy to be truly awesome in what you do. If you didn’t fear failure in doing a task, then you truly didn’t care what the outcome was, and really, should you be doing it then?

“So how are you going to use that fear in your next performance?”

“I’m going to feel it, and redirect it to use it in my DJing to pump the crowd up! I’m going to sign up to do the next show in November! It’s going to be great!”

Without you guys, I wouldn't be able to provide and grow the services which I do (e.g. corporate role-playing, corporate films, workshops (self development, innovation and design solution), live shows, and both classes for confident communication and performance.

Yesterday I attended a networking function ran by the Australian Malaysian and Singaporean Association at the Crown Group.Their CEO, Iwan Sunito, was giving a talk and Q&A about his life, his book ‘From Borneo to Bloomberg’ and Crown’s new Sydney development.It was an interesting talk that Mr Sunito gave, in particular, the question of what makes a good leader was answered with ‘momentum’.The idea of ‘momentum’ was that the leader has to be passionate enough to impart that same passion to their staff and stakeholders.It was this momentum that created the buzz, the drive and the ‘halo’ effect that begets growth in all levels – financial, personal, experiential (my take away, not specifically mentioned by Mr Sunito). He also mentioned that to create or maintain ‘momentum’, there has to be new things being introduced – whether it was bad or good was dependent on the individual.Finally, he was asked if he encountered racism when doing business in his early days, which he replied that he thought that the answered wasn’t to cry racism but rather to foster relationships as that’s when it transcends that notion of race. What’s my take on this?

Well, what a night! Filled with laughs and (possibly potential) love, last night's Perfect Pairs - Improv Your (Love) Life was a hit!

Collaborating with Matchmaker Melle from Perfect Pairs on her 8th event this year, the premise was that this time, her speed dating event had an improv twist! We work-shopped the format and then ran the night with 2 minutes of improv ice-breakers followed by 10 minutes of overall chatting. The key to it was that we understood our participants and managed to tailor the games and format to suit. So for all those who participated, good luck with your matches, and remember "yes, and..!". Remember, if you attended, you would've received a discount code for future shows and workshops as well.

If you're interested, the Confidentpreneur himself interviewed us for his blog about relationships and dating. If you're at a lost in being single or in a relationship, why not check out the video interviews? They might be able to answer your questions. Here's the LINK.

Finally, we have 3 shows left for the year!! Click on the image below to be taken to the Facebook event page.

NOTE: the date for the last SKETCH show is actually 15/11/14, not 08/11/14.